Preconception Blueprint: Laying The Groundwork For Your Child’s Health

Introduction to Fertility and the Guest 0:00

Welcome back to ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit and I am here with an amazing guest, Doctor Simmons, who is a double board certified naturopathic endocrinologist and doctor in practice for over 15 years. She specializes in fertility. So today we're going to talk not necessarily about kids after they're born, but maybe a little bit, but mostly about creating those children and infertility and things like that. She has some amazing books, fertility secrets. What your doctor didn't tell you about Baby making and infertility struggles, secrets and successes.

So she's got a lot of secrets to share with us. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Doctor Rausch. I'm excited to to chat about this. I was really excited to talk on your your event, your summit about fertility. I think it's such an important topic. Number one, because most people these days are starting to become aware that fertility is becoming a greater and greater issue. You know, fertility rates are going down, child birth rates are going down. So that means that there is something going on.

And we really want to figure out, you know, what that is, especially for those that want to get pregnant. You know, it can be really challenging and really frustrating. Yeah, maybe. Let's start there. Let's just talk about what's going on in the world. What what what why? Well, let's talk about the statistics for, like, what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. It's so many statistics. So the average right now is 1 in 6 couples under the age of 35 are struggling with fertility. So over the age of 35, we're not even accounting for all the people that are like, hey, we're going to wait till our 40s to even start trying to have a child.

And then if we look at just the male side of this, the statistics are a little bit scary. It's in 20 years it's predicted that most men will be a sperm which is basically zero sperm. Not that they're bad quality. They're just not in in 20 years, which is literally our lifetime. I have a son. So by the time he is 25, literally there will there will be most men with zero sperm. And hopefully he will not be one of them because we'd love to have grandkids. That's insane. I mean, isn't that just such a crazy potential?

Fertility Decline and Conception Timelines 2:25

So even if it's wrong, even if it's 30 years, even if it's the vast majority of people have zero sperm. I mean, that's a wild statistic. I mean, that's the end of the human race if it's true. Right? Exactly, exactly. And I think, like I was talking about this on a podcast recently, like just how close it is, yet it doesn't feel like we're we're actually comprehending that the end of our race may be 20 years away. Yeah, that's that's pretty, pretty wild. And I'm also curious, what are the the latest statistics you've heard for people that are trying to have a have a child, how long on average is it taking you to decide today like, oh okay.

We do want to have a kid. It's it's. It's still like 12. The average of 12 months is still the recommended way time. The reality, though, is that they'll wait 12 months and then they're looking at at least another year, maybe two years of treatment before they actually have their child. So 2 to 3 years, which is a really long time to think about. Like, you know, if, I know that a lot of the women are like, oh, I have a life plan. And at 28, I'm going to have my first kid, and at 32, I'm going to have my second one.

And like, we have these plans. And when we think about like, oh, I have to start thinking about fertility three years before I'm ready to have a child. Most people are not doing that. Most people aren't even thinking six months in advance, right? They're not like, oh, it's going to take me so long to get pregnant because we've gotten this message, especially as women. Oh, the instant you get off of birth control, the instant you stop using protection of some sort, you're going to get pregnant. And that's just not the reality.

There's like a one day window for women that we could actually conceive. So it's not that you're going to get pregnant the instant you have sex, the instant you get off of your birth control. And the reality is, like especially the hormonal types of birth control are shifting our hormones. So much that we need to we need to build time in to recoup from those. Make sense? And are those statistics? I mean, it's kind of hard to parse out. I think a little bit. But for if you are having, or want to have a child when you're younger, is that still true, too?

I mean, I know for sure, you know, what, as you were getting into the older age of birth, you know, in the late 30s, 40s, it's going to take longer. But it's also true for like the 20 year old. Yeah, a year, at least a year like we need. I say this a lot. We need to plan for our A having our future baby for at least as long as we plan our wedding. At least as long. And was that true 20 or 30 years ago or in the past? You know, is it going on? I you know, part of it. I've wondered this a lot because in my parents generation, we did it.

They didn't talk about fertility struggle that much. So is fertility massively on a decline? Yes. Like we know that from the male sperm numbers, but from the female side, like have we been tracking? I don't know, I don't know that women were as open as they are today. Like, even in the last 15 years that I've been doing this work. There are more conversations that women are having. It's become so mainstream that I'm kind of blown away, like every show that I pick out to watch on Netflix or whatever has a fertility story.

At least one person is having a fertility journey in every single show that I watch. It's insane to me that it's so mainstream and it needs to be even more mainstream. Like we need to have more of these conversations. Yeah. I still think that most people don't realize just how long it takes, especially when you think about when you say something like the average is one year. That means that like half the people, it's longer than a year. You know, that's just the average rate. So yeah. Yeah. Especially as you're getting in the upper years of the 30s and, you know, into your 40s now then, then you're almost certainly unless you get very lucky, I guess would would probably be on that upper range.

And so that would mean maybe two years, three years. And that's not inclusive if you're trying to do any fertility treatment, just if you're trying to do it naturally. So I think that's just an interesting something that to kind of understand, especially for those that are trying family planning. Because we have certainly seen the age in which, families are having children getting later and later, you know, due to multiple factors. But if you want to have a child when you're, you know, before you're 40, let's say, that that means that you need to think about these things and be aware, because you shouldn't start when you're 39, then, you know, you probably should.

Theoretically, if you can and you know you're in the right relationship and you want to have kids, you know, start a 35 or 36 because it might take you a year or two. And that's something that should be should people should be aware, and especially if they want to have multiple kids. Right. So, you know, if you're like, oh, I want to have two kids or three kids. Well, it's not it's not very practical or reasonable anymore to assume that you're going to have one at 38 and one at 39. You know, you want to give yourself more time because that's just the reality of the world, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Why Fertility Is Getting Harder 7:50

And I think really planning ahead and knowing our own numbers. So understanding like what is my ovarian reserve. What's my ovarian age. There's so many questions that we have the ability to answer now with science that we did it 30 years ago, 30 years ago. It was like, roll the dice. Are you going to have a child or you're not going to have a child? Are you going to have a miscarriage or are you not going to have a miscarriage? It was, it was. There was so much missing information that we can now do a simple test and say, hey, your ovaries think you're actually like 40 when you're 32.

We can do something about that. Yeah. So yeah, which is a great I mean, that's one of the good things of technology is that we we can help and we can, you know, understand things a bit more. And, you know, kind of what you said before I, we probably don't have the data that we need to know exactly, how things have shifted in terms of fertility because it probably was not talked about. Not probably it wasn't talked about like it was today, which is a good thing. I would I would I go under the assumption that it's both, you know, we probably don't talk about it as much.

And people were having more fertility struggles than we realize. But at the same time, it's probably much harder to get pregnant today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. And that's kind of in line with every other thing that we're seeing in the world for all sorts of chronic disease and issues. So that's kind of my my take on it. And my question to you for that is why? And why is it becoming so much harder for for parents to get pregnant? Why are we seeing sperm counts decrease and then, yeah. I think I think there are a few factors happening.

Certainly the toxin burden is on the rise and we see newer and newer toxins being released that are maybe go on the market without enough research to say, hey, this is actually safe. So we have this this, conglomeration of stuff that's just in our environment. We're breathing it, we're eating it, we're drinking it, whatever. It's going into our bodies in some way. And almost every one of those toxins has, reproductive impact. So. And and I've, I've dug into the research enough to be like, does this affect both like, is this going to affect male fertility as much as it affects female fertility?

And usually, like some toxins, are more male reproductive toxins, some are more female reproductive toxins. But overall, our systems are impacted by these things that we're putting into our environment. So I think that's a really big component. The other big component that at least I'm seeing and and like becoming more and more hyper aware of are the things that we would call mycotoxins. Those are like mold that, like the latest that is like 50 to 60% of homes in the US have mold and they don't even know it.

Right. We had a, we have, 44 year old patient who we've been working with for almost eight months. And for the last four months of her time with us, we've been like, have you look for mold? Have you looked for mold? Have you looked for mold? Because we were seeing all of these signs that, hey, if we're doing these things and your hormones are still going out of whack, like we need to think about, is there some other impact? And then two weeks ago, she came back and she was like, I found a bunch of old in my bathroom, and we're pulling it out.

And I was like, great. And they're pulling it out and they're finding like more and more behind it. So they have been exposed to this for so many years. She has a seven year old and now they're they've been wanting to have another child for four years. Wow. So, they've been on this journey for a really long time. And it's unfortunate that the, the quote unquote toxin that is most impacting them because they eat super clean, they live super clean. They're like the typical California resident that's like hyper aware of everything.

And yet this one thing is enough to throw off their fertility and make it that much more challenging. So, I think that there is this like the micro toxin thing is going to become more and more prevalent and is impacting fertility in a really big way. So that I would say that's a another big one. And then I know everyone says stress and there's there is about 5000 studies that have pointed to stress and how it impacts fertility. But I the stress that we're talking about is the stress on our mitochondria.

So we can think about stress as like a mental factor. Hey, if I have a lot of stress at work, if I quit my job, then I'm going to get pregnant, right? And and we see that that happens sometimes, but it doesn't happen frequently enough to say everyone just quit your job if you're trying to have a baby. All right. So there are certainly other factors. And I have correlated it to stress being the experience that we have in our bodies of being in fight or flight or freeze mode versus safety mode and anything that pulls us out of safety mode, whether that's the toxins in our environment, the boss calling us on the phone, whatever it is, if it pulls us into that fight or flight freeze response, then it's pulling us out of our reproductive possibility.

Definitely not. I mean, everything you said is just. So why is it so relevant for for families and it's just so important and, you know, if we're if we're moving forward in time, you know, past the pregnancy child is born. We're seeing so much chronic disease right now. I mean, occurrences are skyrocketing. And one of the reasons why I wanted to write my book, and one of the things I really wanted to talk about in there, in parenting at your child's pace, was that we need to think about these things in pregnancy, because I think it's related, I really do.

I think that, you know, maybe it's a little bit controversial, I don't know, but I think that a lot of our fertility issues are our body's way of saying that we're not, you know,

Fertility as Preventative Health 14:20

maybe healthy enough that we should be having kids. And then we're getting around that by doing, you know, IVF treatments or whatever. And I think that's, you know, great. It's a blessing to have kids. But we are kind of circumventing nature. And then, you know, creating a child. But maybe it's in an environment that exactly isn't stable enough to keep them healthy. And that's what we're seeing some of the chronic disease. Right. So I'm I'm curious what you think about that. And not even what I think about it.

There was a study I read recently that was men with male for male factor. Fertility issues were like 60, 40%. I wish I could always remember the stats, but like a significantly higher percentage of them were going to have cancer in the next 20 years, right? So the fact that they had fertility struggle and they bypassed it doing IVF, which is great, it's great to have the resource and the technology to do that. But if we kind of blanket over it, then it's going to pop up somewhere else and it like I think of fertility medicine as the ultimate preventative medicine, right?

Like if you want the number of times we see the 35, 40 year olds that are like, yeah, I don't I just don't feel great. And I've written it off in some way to I'm getting older and I'm like, I'm sorry, 35 is not older. Like, in any way, shape or form. Is this older? So, we're, we're really like programing ourselves to say, oh yeah, it's just old age, old age, old age, old age, when in reality, like, our body's been signaling these things for a really long time. And if we do something about it in the fertility time period, we're actually preventing so many diseases.

And I wish there were like longitudinal studies that would show like, people who took care of their underlying circumstances when they were dealing with fertility issues, like their health trajectory over time. Because and their kids, I know, like it's so many times we found heart disease, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, hyper homocysteine, anemia, all these things that, like, are not in and of itself, the big issue. But keep that going for 20 years, undiagnosed and untreated. You're certainly setting yourself up for heart failure, diabetes is some sort of chronic disease, and your genes have already changed before you get that diagnosis.

So now you've passed those genes on to your child, and you're setting your child up for a lifetime of health issues. Right? Right, exactly. And you know, as you mentioned, I do think that we are seeing a lot more discussion around infertility. So I think that there's a little bit more awareness around that, which is good. But what I have not really seen happening and why I love, you know, your message and people like you who are speaking about this, it's so important to recognize that these fertility issues are there for a reason.

And yes, it's great that we have something like, you know, IVF or other other technologies, but we're using it like everything else in medicine as, as, you know, as a go to it's like, oh, okay. Well, you know, I'm a little older, I'm 40, and so there's just no way I'm gonna be able to get pregnant. I'm 35. I guess that's just how it is, because I'm 35 and so I'm going to go to IVF, whereas we really need to be thinking I should be able to get pregnant in theory. So what is going on in my body that's stopping me from getting pregnant?

Where it where my inflammatory triggers what's going on with my health as to why I can't get pregnant at 25 or 30 as opposed to, well, I'm having trouble, so therefore I should go to IVF. It's great that we have it. So for some people you may very well need it. There may be no medical reasons that there's nothing we can do, and that's the helpful way to get pregnant. But I, I know just like everything else, that for the vast majority of people, it's not that they need IVF, it's a they need to get their health in order.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I think, a little bit of the fear mentality that we have propagated in this world around, oh, your fertility drops off of a cliff at 35. I got that message in naturopathic medical school. So it doesn't matter where you go. It's the same message which is very, very attractive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and I'm almost seeing a shift in the messaging to 32 now. So a lot of 32 year old women have been coming in saying, oh, my IVF doctor said it's because of my age. I'm like, but you're 32.

You're not even at the 35 yet. And so like one of the early, early stimulus that got me into fertility was tracing this 35. I was like, is this actually true? Like, does fertility decline at 35 and when 15 years ago there were not studies about it. So I was like, well, if there are no studies, how do we know that fertility drops off a cliff at 35? So I traced it all the way back. And this myth and I like can call this a myth now is it started in the 1800s in France, not in science, but in churches.

And the priests were noticing that women were not bringing their children in to get baptized over the age of 35. So they concluded that, oh, fertility must drop off of a cliff at 35, because there's not any women after 35 having children.

Practical Foundations for Fertility 20:15

And I was like, well, what was happening the 1800s in France, like how many women was were living? Yeah, I'm 35. And 40 is like life expectancy. Yeah. So really like it. It was a missed calculation, a misjudgment. And it has actually been hard to prove with science. So there are now recent studies and they're very small scale studies, coming out of Europe that have shown that they've compared the 25 to 29 age group versus the 35 to 39 age group. And what they found was there's only like a 3% decline in fertility.

Yeah, 93%. I can't remember where I thought it might have been in one of Emily Auster's books, but I, I feel like like this question was actually discussed, you know, very thoroughly. And they went through the research, just like you said. And it's not it's not so much that fertility goes down. It just was harder to get pregnant. So it took a little bit longer on average. But you still could it just took a little bit longer. So I think that's a myth that needs to be shattered because I think it's important now.

And then again, it goes back to like the stress and just just the reality of the situation. Because if you're expecting it to take a year, well, if you're expecting to take two months, then you're going to be frustrated when it's six months and you haven't been pregnant. But he was pregnant. Take a year or two, then, you know, if it's been nine months that it's still very normal. Yeah, absolutely. And and I think again, I go back to I don't care how old you are in your chronological age, like what's happening in your body.

And at 35 or 40, you've been in your body for that much longer. You've been exposed to toxins for five years longer. So yes. Is there an impact of age? Absolutely. Like you are doing the things, the lifestyle, things that in your 20s and 30s, you've continued doing into your 40s? Is it going to be harder to get pregnant? Yeah. You just expose your body to that much more stuff that it has to deal with. And if you're and we've seen this a lot like I, I remove the age from my analysis. I'm like, if this person was whatever age they were, it wouldn't matter.

Let's look at their hormones. Let's look at what their bodies are saying scientifically, not what date they were born. And if we analyze it from that perspective, then we have a whole new picture. And we have plenty of 45 year olds that get pregnant naturally without any intervention, because they their bodies are not acting like they're 45. And if like, yes, they're obviously they're working with us. So they're struggling. But the struggle can be overcome easily if we understand why they're going through that struggle.

And how can we, like, optimize their body to work the way that it should? So I want to finish off by talking about that bet a little bit. Let's talk practically for, for family. So you, you know, you did this, fertility summit, you've written several books, you got lots of secrets. And I love that. Tell me all your secrets. And I don't think that anything you're about to say is going to be even the remotest of a secret, because it's usually just. It's always basic foundations that are so important.

But I would love to hear through, you know, everything that you've researched and what you've discussed in your events and your summits. What are some of the things that people should be thinking about? If they're thinking about getting pregnant, if they've had a child and they want to have a second child, or maybe they're thinking about having a first child. Probably most people watching this have are already pregnant, hadn't having a first child. But, you know, maybe you're 35 or 40 and you're thinking about having another child.

What are the things you should do right now, even before you're pregnant or even when you're doing even you are pregnant, to make sure that you have the best chance to be healthy and have a healthy pregnancy and get and get pregnant. Absolutely. I think, I think as you said, the foundations are crucial. So I think about the four basic foundations that literally all of us could do at any time that are going to support not only fertility, but our overall health and our child's health. So that's going to be sleep.

I'm a huge fan. I think getting adequate, high quality sleep and in every there was an interesting study that was like every time we try to solve a human problem, we solve it by adding instead of taking away. And I was like, that's really interesting because my approach is first, like, what do we need to take away? Right? So sleep most of the time people are like, well, I can't add any more hours, no problem. Let's optimize the hours that you have. And that means for at least an hour or two before you go to bed, you have cut out the blue screens, the blue light coming from your TV, your computer or whatever.

Or you have blue light filtered glass that kind of screen it out for you, because that's going to impact how well your body produces melatonin. The other thing is, when you wake up, you want to give your brain the signal that you're actually awake, and it's in the super cosmic nucleus, that when we see full spectrum sunlight, our brain goes, oh, time to turn the melatonin off and switch to cortisol. And a lot of people don't get that cortisol awakening response happening adequately. And that's one of the biggest predictors of death.

Not getting that like initial cortisol awakening response. So you can simply optimize that like step outside for five minutes when you wake up in the morning, get the direct sunlight so that your body knows it's time to wake up. Simple. So sleep optimization is first. The second is water. And I talk about water a lot because we don't think about it yet. What, like 85% of our body's water, like we need water to survive and adequate hydration will impact how well our hormones go back and forth and communicate with all the different parts of our body.

They also are going to make the flow of nutrients so you can take all the supplements in the world. But if you don't na hydrated, those those nutrients aren't going anywhere. So you have to get enough water. Water is also going to make sure you have proper bowel movements, which if your bowels are blocked, then you're also not absorbing those nutrients from your food. So in a hydration and ideally like high quality water is a good thing. The food that we like, making it, if there's so many different diets out there at the core of it, like get rid of the processed food and, and like get a variety of nutrients, a lot of people are like, oh, I should eliminate this food and this food and this food.

And instead it's like, well, if we just ate the variety that is available to us, we'd probably be okay. So eating the full spectrum, the full rainbow is really easy to do. And it's it's hard. I've I've we've been trying it in our family like 30 different fruits and vegetables, plant foods through the course of a week. And we're like I every week I'm like, are you do you like 15? What's up? Where else can we add some more fats? And and yeah. And then the last one is getting rid of the toxins. And for fertility, I have three favorites to get rid of, which is glyphosate, which are in our, feminine hygiene products.

So the cotton that is sprayed with glyphosate is going to very much kill our reproductive system. So getting rid of that phthalates, which are all the fragrances that are in people's homes, the scented candles and, plug in air fresheners and all that, those are really highly toxic to our reproductive system. And then, plastic, whether it's plastic water bottles or plastic storage, food containers, things like that are really easy to swap out and are going to make a huge difference on our fertility journey.

Yeah, that's a great, great list. And every, every integrative practitioner and I speak to everybody on this.

Where to Find Dr. Simmons 28:55

So basically we all go back to the same foundations. And I would say same. Yeah. Parenting I think as I call it the seeds. You know I think I mentioned that on your on your summit stress environment and toxins exercise, diet, sleep I mean it's the same list. We all have the same list. So if everybody has the same list, whatever your mnemonic is, I mean people should take note. You know, these are the things they're not. You know, you talk about secrets. It's an unsecured secret. It's like it's a secret again, because we're forgetting about this stuff.

But it's like, hey, go outside for five minutes. But we need to say that, like, people aren't. You're not going outside waking up and like, you know, you need to. Work and like, people work from home. Now, you can literally sit at home all day. Like, I literally sit at home all day. If I'm not intentional about, oh my gosh, I gotta go get some light and fresh air a couple times a day. Man. You got you got to think about these things. And if you're, you know, sitting at home right now and you're watching this summit, it's like, you know, you got to take some action steps here.

They're not complicated, but it maybe you got to write it down. Maybe you got to have a list. But like these things are not rocket science. But if you're not doing it every day, all the time, if you're not thinking about it with every purchase, then you're not going to be healthy and your kids won't be healthy and you're going to have trouble getting pregnant. I mean, that's just the statistics. It's hard enough as it is. So if you're not, if you're not giving your body the best chance to to get pregnant, then you know you're going to you're going to be in a difficult place when when you do want to.

And thankfully, there are people like you who you can, you know, connect with and, that they can then get the help. And if you are having struggles out there, then you're an amazing resource. So maybe you can just tell people you know, if they're interested in and working with you or finding you or finding your resources. Where are the best places to go for that would be? Oh, sure. So our website is Holistic Fertility institute.com. You can find us on Instagram. I'm very active there at Holistic Fertility Doctor.

And we have a podcast called Egg Meets Sperm. I love it, I love it. So, check that out. You know, you're it's so important to me to have individuals like you, because as a pediatrician, I don't have patients unless you do. The great work that you do. And if there is no sperm in 20 years, then I'm out of a job. So, you know, I it's not a not a great plan for me either. So we got to work together to make sure we keep having we keep having it. We got it. We got to reverse this. And I feel like we can.

I just think that we need to spend more energy on what are the things that are really affecting our potential for the human race, and how do we, like, get back to a different place? Yeah, exactly. Because there are a lot of things that we, we have done that are great for our health. But then there's a lot of things that are not great, so we can find some balance in the middle, to get life expectancy going up again. So again, thank you so much for for joining us. Thank everyone for watching. And, we'll see you in the next episode.

Thanks. This is why I'm inviting you to join me at the ADHD, autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. ADHD, autism and chronic disease parenting summit. Thank you for claiming your seven day free access to the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. I'm so excited to share all of this and more with you at the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. Thank you for joining us at the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. See them again. A little different angle this time. Just so.

That way. See, that works better. That's why I'm inviting you to join me at the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. Thank you for claiming your seven day free access to the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. I'm so excited to share all of this and more with you at the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. Thank you for joining us at the ADHD, Autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit.